"when/if the government ever does get the sought after "100% ban" on all guns"

Interesting, I never heard of this. Can I have more details on who advocates a 100% ban on all guns? I suppose that police and military are an exception...

Seriously, no one who I have ever met supports this so it seems to be a straw man.

Well, I've seen quotes from some prominent anti-gunners indicating that that is their ultimate goal, or that it would be if it were politically possible, but they'll settle for what they can get now. Don't have cites off-hand, and I haven't gone and verified them in the past, but I have seen them referenced in pro-gun articles.

But it seems to be a reasonably popular idea: http://www.google.com/search?q="ban+all+guns"
Now some hits are for "don't ban all guns" and the like, but there are certainly some people who support banning all guns except police and military.

Yes.. I've been in the argument with many people that truly believe an outright ban on all guns except for police and military...

But again - lets just take a gander at DC that had an outright ban on all handguns (or rather, only allowed permitted weapons - and banned the issuing of permits FOR handguns), required a permit for rifles, and for the rifles that had permits required to be disassembled and stored separately from ammo and in a safe.

That's close enough.

Most Supreme court justices agreed with the decision.. but there was 3 or 4 that signed a dissent given when Scalia made the ruling. It's all in the decision I linked to.. but the fact that that many supreme court justices would consider allowing DC this ability.. and the fact that the overall outcome of the ruling was so close (5/4 i think?) makes me very fearful for the future.

If that shifts even one supreme court justice to the anti-gun crowd and we risk running a similar to DC ban in ALL STATES. (assuming they get the original ruling, overturned).

Oh, here some are. This was on the third page of that search...
http://www.gunscholar.org/gunban.htm

It may not be your view, or perhaps anyone's in this thread, but it's definitely out there, and current gun control attempts are at the very least playing along with them.

It still becomes a straw man if rules of probability/practicality are applied.

How likely are fringe protestors to get all guns banned?

How likely is PETA to turn us all into fruitarians?

How likely is Texas to secede?



Wait... that last one could happen.

Sorry, fatalsaint, that analogy is flawed. If I call someone a name it may wound his pride, but that's it. Nobody dies if I fire off a few harsh words (let's please not get into the tangent of how words are leveraged, thanks).

I'm all for gun ownership rights because I'm a solid constitutionalist... but while Karel may be correct that the "right to safety" isn't specifically enumerated, it is certainly implied to an extent in the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". So the rights of gun owners do indeed, sorry to say, need to be balanced against the rights of those who choose to do without. That's what the whole concept behind constitutional law is all about. As Justice Holmes put it, "your right to swing your arms stops at the other fella's nose."

Now, if this tired old debate was limited to mere ownership of guns then it would be a silly one. If we wanted to get literal "keep and bear arms" is certainly, prima facie, limited to just that. There is no enumerated right to go around shooting. I realize that's pedantic but it gets to the heart of the issue here: it's the abuse of the right that has led to restrictions. If everyone played by the rules, there would be fewer rules. Legitimate gun owners pay the price for those who refuse to play by the rules, and due to that I would expect them to WANT strict laws (and enforcement) regarding gun abuse.

I'm a former gun owner who agrees with the assault rifle ban you decry. The main reason being that a line HAS to be drawn somewhere-- for instance, wouldn't you agree that a civilian has no right toting a bazooka around town? While that may seem hyperbolic it's meant to illustrate the point of a dividing line between what the citizenry can carry and what's restricted to the military. Just as in every single issue there is no real consensus on where that line should be, which is one reason this does need to be decided at a federal level (as loathe as I am to speak those words)-- leave this up to the states and you end up with a mish-mash of laws that I guarantee you will cause gun owners much more heartburn than what you deal with currently.

Personally I agree with guns for protection but that brings up the line of How Many Shots Do You Need to Fire? hard to quantify, but I daresay it isn't 1... but it isn't 50, either. A reasonable figure needs to be arrived at (based on statistics and gun capability/use) and implemented. So rather than rule against generic types of guns I would want the rule to be against capacity.

And I'll grant you the difficulty in enforcing certain rules, but that argument quickly leads to massive logical fallacies (ie, no law is 100% enforceable ergo no law is effective ergo no law should be implemented).

This is just another issue that isn't black and white no matter how much proponents/opponents would like to think. Every individual likes to scream for his rights--- all the while forgetting that other individuals have them as well.

Not so much "fringe protestors"... from the site linked above:
Check out that Krauthammer quote. How likely is it that they succeed? Well, it depends how many of these desensitizing compromises we make before we start to kick back and not give an inch.

Even the ones that SAY they want to ban all guns mostly specify handguns and big guns, as I scanned the finds for "ban all guns".

In any case, I specified that I hadn't met any of these people, which is true. I think that the popularity of claiming that there is a significant group of people who advocate this is that it's so easy to alarm gun owners with this specter.

Actually... people have said that words can cause death, panic, etc.. because of how people react to those words. Just like, you can get into a lot of trouble for threatening to assassinate the president of the united states.. whether the threat has merit or not.

If the news went on and said factually that they had evidence and fact that an entire county would be demolished by an earthquake tomorrow... wouldn't you hold that person responsible for the fallout that came of it? Especially if it was only speculation with no factual premise?

Words can and do have consequences. What about the fourth amendment? The rule against unreasonable search and seizures? What if I went through court records and showed you every single time a criminal was released, or got off of jail time, due to a technicality in the police search? Or that a bloody knife, a smoking gun, a signed confession (written and found on a coffee table at the house), was tossed out of court and never presented to the jury because the judge deemed it was the result of an unreasonable search.

Surely we can't stand for this! Criminals on our streets!! We must destroy that fourth amendment! I mean heck; only criminals have any reason to fear an unreasonable search anyway! You and I don't litter our house with contraband and illegal substances, right??? There is no reason for the police not to be able to parade through our homes at a whim! We have nothing to hide!

Stand america! Fight the injustice!



Am I being extreme?? Maybe. But so are most of the pro-gun control advocates I come across. And my arguments make as much sense as theirs.

To address your support of the AWB.. almost nothing in that ban actually affected the actual operation of the firearm. They are merely weapons that looked scary.. the infamous "Evil Black Rifle".. but really had NOTHING to do with operation. They figured if they could give them a nasty title, IE: Assault Weapon.. people will be more supportive. Well it worked. Even though, the bans were completely superficial.

An AR-15 with collapsible stock and flash hider = banned (Illus: http://www.restlessadventurer.net/gu...aster_ar15.jpg -- Ooooohhh scarrryyyy).

A Ruger Mini-14 - COMPLETELY LEGAL. (Illus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruger_Mini-14 -- awww.. isn't it cute?)

Nevermind the fact that both weapons fire from 5, 10 and 30 round magazined of the exact same caliber.

Yeah - now THERE is a ban that makes sense. Not to mention I can buy a standard hunting rifle, change out the stock, base, etc and make your so-called "assault weapon".

Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0 -- at around 6 minute mark.. he does it right in front of your eyes.

Your arguments would have more merit if the bans you were supporting actually made sense to anyone that knew anything about firearms.

Everything is give-and-take. Everything. Refer back to the Justice Holmes quote-- it's that clear, succinct logic that dictates every society HAS to find and largely accept demarcation points or fail to function. And while evryone may not agree exactly where those lines should be (voting age? drinking age? age for consensual sex? etc) it's not difficult to find majority consensus on places they should NOT be.

So you may not give an inch, but after an argument has persisted long enough you will find the pendulum hovering over that fuzzy line so that leadership regimes of alternating philosophies move it back and forth by ideological millimeters. It's unavoidable once you've (inverse) logarithmically progressed past the larger differences.